From: Kipling on
IMX of driving a 1.6 Combo Van that is "factory fitted with LPG is, that i
get around 30MPG around town/short 10 min journeys, and a bit better over a
run. Though it falls of a cliff if i drive like a loon.

I live around the Bolton/Chorley area and get around the north and midlands
plenty. Finding fuel has never been a problem, as i just fill it up whenever
it is 1/4 or less whenever i see a station selling LPG. The difference with
petrol is, around here at least LPG varies from 52p/Litre to 63p/Litre. (
and when i got the van about 2� years ago it was 39p) so generaly i just
make brim it whenever i am passing the cheapest if it is less than three
quarters. I have never been one of them people who puts �3 of fuel in 10
times a week, i have always with all of my cars brimmed them and driven
around till it is under a quarter and filled it again.

In addition to LPG i usually stick in �5 a month petrol too. In summer it
probably doesnt use �5 a month, but in winter it uses more than �5 a month,
so it balances out and there is always some in the tank if the LPG fails or
runs out.

As for servicing, it is just normal service schedule for everything as
normal (except the LPG) as with all my cars i generally change the oil every
6months/5-6000miles, as other posters have said it stays nice and clean
longer. I change the plugs as per the handbook and they look like new when
they come out, but then i have never driven a petrol car before so i wouldnt
know the difference.

Since getting the car at 115k i have had the LPG system serviced twice, once
at 120k when it wouldnt stay in gas mode, this was cured by a LPG service,
where they changed all the filters and cleaned out various bits and bobs -
Cost �165+VAT by a local specialist.

It picked up another fault at 160K when an injector failed causing a
missfire, cost �170 service + �115 for a new KOLTEC injector + �30 for
fitting and fiddling on the computer.

I have a feeling the the LPG guy i use is a bit like harrods prices, but he
is the only one recommended for miles around.

I would have another LPG car in a flash, not sure about having one converted
though!


From: Dave on
Fred wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was driving down the road today and passed a petrol station. The
> sign said that petrol was 117.9ppl, diesel was 117.9ppl, but lpg was
> 65.9ppl; so that's almost half the price of the other two fuels.
>
> I remember looking for a new car six or seven years ago. I saw a Ford
> Focus that had an LPG tank in the well where the spare tyre normally
> goes. I don't know where they put the spare tyre though (under the
> car?).
>
> I didn't buy that car. At the time one of the reasons I walked away
> was that there were few lpg selling stations but I've noticed a few
> recently. Has lpg become more popular in the last six years? (I
> realise that car had a petrol tank but what was the point buying a gas
> car to use petrol 99% of the time).
>
> Today I thought I would have a read of the maintenance group to look
> for posts about lpg. I found a couple recommending the fuel.lpg group
> but there doesn't seem to be much in there other than spam. Has that
> group died?
>
> I seem to remember that one litre of lpg is not equivalent to one
> litre of petrol, but even so, with the massive price difference is lpg
> better than petrol and even diesel? I'm talking about buying a car
> that is already fitted with lpg, so the cost of a conversion would not
> be relevant here.
>
> Regarding the petrol tanks: how big are they? Are they small and
> designed for emergency use when there is no gas or are they standard
> size?
>
> Some of the old posts mentioned that duty would be increased on lpg,
> meaning the prices would meet those of petrol and diesel. These posts
> are dated 2004 and nothing seems to have happened yet. Will it?

Some excellent info here http://www.lpgforum.co.uk

I know that you're looking to buy a car that's already LPG rather than pay
for conversion yourself so I'd strongly advise that you have a good look
around that forum to get a feel for it all first. The problem is that the
car has to have the right system fitted. Not all systems are equal, nor are
all installers.

I started by asking for recommendations for a good installer but quickly
found out that it's not that simple because some installers are only
qualified to fit one brand of system - and that may not be the best system
for my car. For instance, I've got a 52-plate Nissan Maxima QX 3.0L V6 SE
Plus Auto and when the engine is under heavy load, say, on a German
autobahn, doing 120mph with a full payload and going uphill, that's when you
really want it to be drinking cheap LPG instead of expensive petrol. Some
systems can't cope with delivering the amount of LPG needed at that time and
would switch back to petrol or even mix petrol and LPG to cope with it.

There's an installer about 7 miles from me and by all accounts, he's a
master craftsman in LPG installations. His work is more like a piece of art;
very clean, very tidy, and a joy to behold - but he's only qualified to
install Tartarini systems. When I asked if it would cope with the above
scenario without changing back to petrol, he didn't know, so I went about 40
miles away to Warrington Autogas (who have now moved from Warrington to
Widnes http://www.autogas99.co.uk/).

They assured me that an OMVL Dream XXI N system would cope easily and have
oomph to spare, so I went with them. I've now covered 27,000 miles in the 20
months since conversion and I'm one extremely happy bunny :o)

So, even though you're not looking to have the conversion done yourself,
make sure that whoever did it, did it right.

HTH,
Dave


From: Peter Hill on
On Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:11:59 +0100, Willy Eckerslyke
<oss108no_spam(a)bangor.ac.uk> wrote:

>hugh wrote:
>> In message <03t1r5lbcdl8a06alsf01gprjhttiki3k5(a)4ax.com>, Fred
>> <fred(a)no-email.here.invalid> writes
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I was driving down the road today and passed a petrol station. The
>>> sign said that petrol was 117.9ppl, diesel was 117.9ppl, but lpg was
>>> 65.9ppl; so that's almost half the price of the other two fuels.

Rip off !! (see end of post)
Shell and many other stations, out of town on trunk roads (DC) charge
M-way prices. It's quite easy to find just off Trunk/M-way superstores
with 24hr LPG, Sainsburys Watford, ADSA Bristol.

>> He caloric value of a litre of propane is a bit less (About 10%) than a
>> litre of petrol.
>
>It's worse than that. Energy content of lpg is about 77% that of petrol
>because you also have to take the density into account.
>
>If I'm working it out right, a pound's worth of petrol will get you 72%
>as much energy as a pound's worth of lpg at the prices above. Depending
>whether your car likes it or not, that means you'll either do 100 miles
>for the cost of 72, or you'll just have 72% of the power.

I'll show my calc (confirms yours)

Cars don't condense the water vapour in the cylinder so LHV is needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_heating_value

LPG
Liquid density 0.51 Kg/L
Vaporized 46.3 MJ/kg.
so that's 23.6 MJ/L
@ 65.9ppl = 35.8 MJ/�

Petrol
density 0.72 Kg/L
42.5 MJ/kg
so that's 30.6 MJ/L
@ �1.179/L = 25.9 MJ/�

1.38 x the energy/� compared to petrol, or LPG is 72% of the cost of
petrol. V-power, BP-ultimate, Tesco 100RON will cost even more
(cheapest within 20 miles of me is 123.9p/l and many are 126.9 p/L)
but has lower octane than LPG.

and do

Diesel
density 0.85 Kg/L
43 MJ/kg
so that's 36.55 MJ/L
@ �1.179/L = 31 MJ/�

1.13 x the energy/� compared to Diesel, or LPG is 87% of the cost of
Diesel. Diesel gives 1.2 x the energy of petrol and 83% of the cost.
But Diesel is more efficient at part load as they run lean and
un-throttled so difference to petrol is wider and narrows the gap on
LPG. Diesel cars cost more, often when new as much more as a LPG
conversion to a new petrol car. So at these prices it's more down to
convience of supply and choice of engine between SI or CI response
than cost.

The LPG vapour displaces about 4% more inlet air than petrol, so about
4% power loss at wide open throttle. The throttle needs to be opened a
bit more at part load, so may feel a bit less responsive on LPG. The
complete lack of soot in the exhaust (and engine oil) indicates it has
slightly better efficiency than petrol (soot is un-burnt fuel) as does
much lower un-burnt HC. This claws back a bit of the volumetric loss.
It will allow better timing and higher boost for more power than
petrol with a boosted engine. N/A engines would need an increase in
compression ratio and removal of the petrol system to properly take
advantage of the high octane. Going from 96 RON at 9:1 to 108 RON with
12:0 gives 3% points increase in efficiency. Or assuming efficiency is
about 30% > 33% is around 10% gain.

>> However the price difference more than compensates for
>> that especially if you take out the conversion cost.
>
>If the conversion costs 1000 quid, you'll need to spend nearly 3 grand
>in fuel before breaking even. And that's ignoring any inconvenience.

Is anyone really stupid enough to use E85 for everyday use in the UK?
As it's only a few p/L cheaper, if at all and consumption is way
higher (about 20%) it makes being "green" very expensive. Though as
it's still much cheaper than VP race fuel, it's great if you have a
CCXR, that makes 200bhp more on E85. It's tuners fuel of choice for
Ireland and Sweden.

There is no LPG in Burton on Trent and petrol prices are sky high.
Shell undertook to set prices at their service station opposite to
Tesco at 1p/L lower (I was in there when the manger got the call to
confirm it). Tesco figured it out, stopped competing and put prices
up, Shell tracked them back up. Prices are so high that out of town
trunk road services are cheaper.

Morrisons Burton 3.79 miles 115.9p
Jet Brobot Willington Services A38 Nth & Sth 4.62 miles 115.9p
Shell (not Tesco) Burton 2.06 miles 116.9p
Esso Hatton Service Station 2.87 miles 116.9p
(go 13 miles to Derby and there's 9 at 114.9p, or Swadlincote 7.8miles
and there are 3 at 113.9p)

Nearest LPG is 13 miles from me. At 65.9p/L you will clearly have been
RIPPED OFF.
Asda Derby 16.71 miles 54.9p
Total Fradley Service Area A38 North 12.57 miles 57.9p
Shell Allestree Derby 13.84 miles 58.9p
Total Appleby Magna (M42 junction) 13.01 miles 60.9p

@ 55ppl = 42.9 MJ/�, 60% of cost of petrol and 72% of cost of Diesel.

If a convenient cheap supply is there then LPG beats Diesel by a long
way. The ASDA Derby one is only 3 miles from where I work but it's 3
miles the wrong way. Would cost me 80p to go fill up and the others
are actually even further out of "my way" so longer round trip. Spare
wheel tanks hold little more than 40L, if that, so 2p/L premium.
Better get a big tank on a trailer and fill that once a month or take
two 13Kg bottles on the back seats evey week, get a pump and double
the range.

Finally whoever the bod is in No11 they can't put road fuel duty on
domestic propane and there's no difference between UK domestic propane
the UK LPG. 19Kg (37L) bottles are around 70p/L at the moment, bigger
will be cheaper like 47Kg (92L) is 65p/L, under 19Kg are not at all
competitive.
--
Peter Hill
Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header
Can of worms - what every fisherman wants.
Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!
From: Mick on
Fred,

I had a Ford Scorpio 2.3 litre engine that I converted to run on Lpg in
2001 and I finally changed it last year and it's still going strong.

I did over 80,000 miles after I converted it to run on LPG, I had a few
hicups whilst runing on LPG, most notable when the weather was
cold and damp it had the habbit of blowing out a breather plug in
the inlet manifold and stalling the engine. The first couple of times
it did this was a problem, but after that I got used to it and it was
a couple of seconds to push it back in.

The most important part was that it cost about �1200 to convert
and I showed a saving of �5400 on the time that I had it.

And as said above the car is still going strong with its new owner
and its still running on LPG.

Mick


"Fred" <fred(a)no-email.here.invalid> wrote in message
news:03t1r5lbcdl8a06alsf01gprjhttiki3k5(a)4ax.com...
> Hi,
>
> I was driving down the road today and passed a petrol station. The
> sign said that petrol was 117.9ppl, diesel was 117.9ppl, but lpg was
> 65.9ppl; so that's almost half the price of the other two fuels.
>
> I remember looking for a new car six or seven years ago. I saw a Ford
> Focus that had an LPG tank in the well where the spare tyre normally
> goes. I don't know where they put the spare tyre though (under the
> car?).
>
> I didn't buy that car. At the time one of the reasons I walked away
> was that there were few lpg selling stations but I've noticed a few
> recently. Has lpg become more popular in the last six years? (I
> realise that car had a petrol tank but what was the point buying a gas
> car to use petrol 99% of the time).
>
> Today I thought I would have a read of the maintenance group to look
> for posts about lpg. I found a couple recommending the fuel.lpg group
> but there doesn't seem to be much in there other than spam. Has that
> group died?
>
> I seem to remember that one litre of lpg is not equivalent to one
> litre of petrol, but even so, with the massive price difference is lpg
> better than petrol and even diesel? I'm talking about buying a car
> that is already fitted with lpg, so the cost of a conversion would not
> be relevant here.
>
> Regarding the petrol tanks: how big are they? Are they small and
> designed for emergency use when there is no gas or are they standard
> size?
>
> Some of the old posts mentioned that duty would be increased on lpg,
> meaning the prices would meet those of petrol and diesel. These posts
> are dated 2004 and nothing seems to have happened yet. Will it?
>
> TIA